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“What are you doing?”
I looked up over the screen and met Brayden’s gaze. “Research.”
“So if I turned that screen around, I’d see dinosaurs and shit?”
“Um. Not that kind of research.”
“Jesse, man. Spit it out.”
Knowing he was about two seconds away from grabbing the laptop away from me, I relented. “This woman was staring at me today while I was at lunch with Tor. When he stepped outside to take a call, she came over and tried to tell me his name was really something else and that he’d dated her brother. I told her she had the wrong guy, but she swore it was him.”
Brayden frowned. “What did she say his name was?”
“I think she said it was Todd? Todd Covington? But I’m searching it now and I don’t see anything. Maybe it was something else. Ted…? Tyler? No, that’s not it. I can’t remember. But she called her brother Lee, and I forgot about it until now.”
“Does Lee show up in the search?”
“I don’t know.” I typed in Lee Wood and, when about a million hits came through, gave a frustrated sigh. “This is going to take forever. She was probably lying.”
“Or not.” Brayden turned down the volume of the movie and scooted closer so he could see the screen. “You have to narrow it down. Type in Lee Wood, Westport.”
Something niggled at the back of my brain, but I typed it in anyway. We spent the next thirty minutes going through different combinations, adding both their names, the city, looking to see if anything showed up. Then we looked up Salvatore Wolfe, and though he had a vast online presence, there was nothing regarding his dating history, no one connected with either of those names.
“Has Salvatore always lived here? Has he ever mentioned his past before?”
“I don’t know. All I remember is he said…” I trailed off as a conversation we’d had weeks ago popped into my mind. “Um… Is there somewhere called Hazard in Oregon?”
“Hazard? Yeah. It’s a small ass-backwards town a few hours away. Why?”
“Hang on.”
As soon as I typed in Lee Wood and Hazard, Oregon, several obituaries popped up, as well as newspaper articles. I clicked on the first one and skimmed over it as Brayden read over my shoulder.
Over the last several weeks, many concerned citizens in Hazard have reached out to the Standard regarding the mysterious circumstances surrounding Lee Michael Wood’s death at the age of sixteen. Before now, there has been no public statement by the family, prompting speculation of foul play. But the Wood family, who own Pacific Timber, the largest timber company in the state, have sought to put those rumors to rest by revealing Lee’s cause of death as an undiagnosed heart condition. They ask that you respect their privacy at this time as they grieve their loss.
“You don’t think that’s who she meant, do you? He was only sixteen,” Brayden said, sitting back.
“Yeah, probably not. I don’t think Tor’s into underage guys.”
“Hey…check out the date. That was twenty-two years ago.”
I looked at the top corner, and sure enough, the article was dated over two decades prior.
“How old is Salvatore?”
“He’ll be thirty-eight in a couple months.”
“Huh.” Brayden’s forehead creased. “So he would’ve been about sixteen then too. Maybe he and this Lee guy were high school sweethearts.”
“That’s kind of reaching, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. What else shows up?”
I clicked the back button and scrolled down, but every link but one—for a recently deceased eighty-five-year-old—led back to the teenaged Lee Wood and his untimely death. Apparently, it’d been a big scandal back then, judging from the number of articles about it.
“I guess small towns love to gossip,” I said. “If it’s anything like my hometown, every Tom, Dick, and Harry would be talking about— Wait. Shit, that’s it.” I went back to the search bar and typed in Tom Covington, Lee Wood, Hazard, Oregon. Yet again, all of the results linked back to Lee Wood. All except for one.
The candid newspaper photo that popped up of several teens was grainy, but I could still make out the strong bone structure and penetrating eyes that belonged to Tor. My Tor. His hair was a bit longer, not styled back the way he wore it now, and he was leaner, not quite as muscular, though he still towered over everyone else. The tagline underneath the photo read:
Hazard High School students Brock Lloyd, Lee Wood, Tom Covington, and Michelle Overton help pass out frozen turkeys to needy families at the school’s annual Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway, sponsored in part by Pacific Timber.
My heart swelled a little that even back then, he’d been taking care of others. That was the Tor I knew.
“Damn,” Brayden said. “That’s him. That’s definitely Salvatore.”
“Yeah, it is.” I couldn’t stop staring at the younger Tor, wondering what he’d been like back then. Had he still been so serious and the leader of every crowd? Or had he cracked a smile every now and again and gotten in trouble like a normal teenager? Seeing the photo only made me want to know more about him, especially now that I knew he’d definitely changed his name to become Salvatore Wolfe. The man was an enigma, one I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of. Glancing over at my still-silent phone, I wondered if I’d still have a chance to ask.
